In Which Scott McCall Emphatically Does NOT Cuddle
by Eavis
Summary: Really, the best way to sum this up is to say that a couple of uncomfortable (for the characters, at least) but necessary things/discussions happen and Derek and Stiles make more plans to save people because apparently they are employees of the Winchester Family Business. 5th in my au series It's A Pack Thing (You Wouldn't Understand).


The next afternoon, Stiles pulls up in front of the Hale house and has barely cut the engine before Scott's climbing into the passenger seat and slamming the door behind him. Stiles blinks. "So…how'd it go?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Scott grits out, crossing his arms across his chest and slumping a little in the seat.  
Stiles blinks again and looks from Scott, pouting like someone just stole his chew toy, to Derek, who has, true to form, appeared with no forewarning on the front porch. (Stiles thinks Derek probably moonlights – hah! – teaching Stalking 101 [with complementary course How To Look Like A Creepy Stalker in Five Easy Steps].) Stiles sighs and swings himself out of the jeep.

Scott sits up fast. "Where are you going?"

Stiles rolls his eyes. "You're being Mr. Grumpytail; I'm gonna go talk to Derek. Even monosyllabic answers are better than whining and pouting."

Scott looks wounded, but doesn't reply, so Stiles heads over to the porch, hunching a little in his layers against the sudden sharp wind as he tilts his head to look up at the alpha. "Care to explain what's got Scott's panties in a twist?"

Derek looks uncomfortable, though whether it's with the metaphor or the subject matter Stiles has no idea. "He didn't say anything?"

"Just that he didn't want to talk about it. Why?" Stiles' gaze sharpens. "What happened?"

Derek shifts his weight a bit, shoves his hands in his pockets. He opens his mouth to say something, then closes it abruptly and jerks his head towards the door. "Inside."  
Stiles raises an eyebrow, but he's totally on board with not standing around in the wind, so he follows Derek. Inside, he glances around – it's the first time he's been in the house since Derek came back (although he'd explored it plenty when he was younger; there's something irresistible about abandoned houses) and is somehow wholly unsurprised that nothing's been done to fix it up. He doesn't even see a mattress or coffee maker or anything, and now that he thinks about it, the lack of a mattress and coffee in the mornings could totally explain Derek's perpetual bad attitude.

There's the sound of a throat clearing and Stiles' attention snaps back to Derek, whose eyebrows are raised. "If you're done admiring the scenery?"

Stiles gives what he hopes is a careless grin and a shrug. "Sorry. You were saying?"

"I turned Jackson."

Stiles starts laughing. Derek just looks at him and Stiles' laughter turns uncertain. "That punchline is never coming, is it?" He says. "What _possessed_ you to turn the biggest jock in the entire galaxy, who _already_ has more power than is good for him, into a _werewolf_?"

"I needed a pack and –"

"Yeah, yeah, you needed a pack because pack makes you stronger and Scott won't join you so you decided to give Jackson the bite because he batted his eyelashes and said pretty pretty please with a cherry on top?"

"You don't get it! Neither one of you gets it! The purpose of a pack isn't to make me stronger, it's to make _us_ stronger! Omegas _don't survive_ on their own, Stiles. And when Jackson came to me and asked for the bite, I asked him why and you know what he said, Stiles? You know what he said? He said, 'So next time, I'll be strong enough.' You _know_ what that's like! I know you know – that feeling when someone takes something you love, and destroys it, and you are _powerless_ to stop them. So yeah, I gave him the bite. We're Pack now. Family. Just like I tried to tell Scott at the beginning of all this. And if Jackson being a part of my pack keeps Scott from joining, that's his problem now. He's going to have to make that choice, and sooner rather than later."

Stiles' mouth is hanging open. That's definitely more words in a row than he's ever heard from Derek before, but he keeps himself with a Herculean effort from pointing that out and says instead. "Okay, I guess I get that, and I get why Jackson wanted the bite and I _definitely _get why Scott is pissed. I mean, getting here and finding out your worst enemy from school just joined the furry party is enough to make anyone go crazy, full moon aside. I bet they just tore in to each other, huh?"

Derek glances away and then back at Stiles. "They did, but that's – that's not exactly what Scott's pissed about."

Stiles' eyebrows shoot up. "It's not? Wait, did Jackson insult Allison's left eyebrow or something and then he tried to attack and you stepped in and pulverized them both?"

"No. Well, sort of." Derek looks frustrated. "They threw each other into trees a lot, but I just let them fight as long as they weren't in any danger of hurting each other seriously."

"Throwing each other into trees doesn't count as – no, never mind, of course it doesn't." Stiles sits down on the bottom step of the staircase and waves for the other to go on. For once Derek doesn't continue to loom, moving instead to sit on the same step. "But they got tired of that after a couple hours so I made them do laps – thirty or so around the house – and then we all went for a run in the woods. Once we got back, everyone was pretty worn out, so –" Derek is very carefully looking only at his half-charred floorboards "– so we all went to sleep."

Stiles blinks. He seems to be doing that a lot lately. "That's what Scott's so upset about? He had to share a room with Jackson Whittenmore?"

Derek scowls, and if a scowl can look uncomfortable, this one does. "Not a room. A mattress." His scowl goes even more uncomfortable until it's really edging more into grimace territory. "They – Scott and Jackson were – " and that's definitely a grimace "– cuddling. It – didn't go over well when they woke up."

Stiles loses it. He can't help himself – the mental image of Scott McCall and Jackson Whittenmore, sworn enemies since the Play-Doh incident of '01, _cuddling_ is too much. He finally rolls over from where he's collapsed on the floor and gasps out, "Please tell me you got pictures."

Derek glares. "No, I did not get pictures. I was a little _busy_ at the time, if you recall."

"Well, _this_ certainly does explain the pouting and whining Scott was doing. " Stiles' grin fades a little and he asks, "Can he hear us?"

Derek shakes his head in a negative. "That's why I had us come inside. I can still hear his heartbeat, but that's just because –"

"You're the alpha, yeah. Look, that's actually what I wanted to talk to you about. I know it's how you've probably always related to people or whatever, but the domineering stuff and the whole "resistance is futile you will be assimilated" shpeal? It's not going to work with Scott. His dad was…" Stiles pauses for a second, his eyes glinting in the dusty cold light filtering in through the broken windows, "The best thing that guy ever did was walk out on Scott and his mom. Dad tried over and over to get him put away on domestic abuse charges but he always had some card he could pull, some loophole to slip through – he'd never stay in longer than a week. He left when Scott was twelve, and by that time Scott already hated everything about his dad, and the biggest thing? His dad was a control freak. He said jump, they were supposed to ask meters or feet. So your 'I'm the alpha do as I say' crap? He's not ever going to listen. Get his respect first. Scott's loyal. Once he decides to join your Pack, he's never going to look back." Stiles stands up and dusts himself off. "It just might take a few more cuddling sessions to get him there."

Derek is still sitting on the bottom step, eyes on his dusty boots and arms crossed over his knees.

"Stiles!" the shout comes from outside, "We ever leaving?"

"Yeah, Scott, just a sec," Stiles yells back, then says, fiddling with his hoodie's red string (and no, the irony of the red hoodie hasn't escaped him), "So, uh, you said you might know something about Lydia?"

Derek nods without looking up. "I'll drop by later tonight. Might need you to research a couple things."

"Sure – I mean, great, whenever. Uh, see you then, I guess." He gives a kind of awkward half wave and goes out to Scott, leaving Derek still sitting there.

Derek drops in – literally, of course – about ten as Stiles is researching Acheri lore. He barely manages not to jump as Derek looms over his shoulder. The werewolf is eyeing the unchanged window lock balefully, but doesn't actually say anything about that, remarking instead, "Acheri demons, seriously?"  
Stiles folds his arms across his chest. "Hey, most people would put me in an insane asylum if I ever told them werewolves are real. I'd just like to be prepared for anything." He huffs a laugh. "Regular Boy Scout."

Derek doesn't say anything in reply to that, though he does give Stiles an odd look, just says, "I think the Martin girl's immune."

Research forgotten, Stiles asks quickly, desperately, "Is the bite going to kill her?"

"Not necessarily. The bite's not taking but there's still a lot of infection going on. I think I may have a way to help her but I'm not – I'm not going to be able to do it myself. You two are friends, right?"

Stiles rubs the back of his neck and crosses and uncrosses his legs before venturing, "That might depend on your definition of friends?"

"Someone you can trust not to stab you in the back, " Derek defines immediately.

"…does acquaintances work?"

Derek gestures impatiently. "I don't care; you just have to be able to get a bouquet into her room without people calling security on you."

"That I can do."

"Good."

"So I'm assuming this isn't going to be a normal daisies and tulips 'get well soon' bouquet?"

Derek makes a motion like he might be rolling his eyes if he were slightly less macho and says, "You'll need to find amaranth, eucalyptus, and angelica flowers. Put them together in a silver vase with a little monkshood powder in the water. And if you can get anything iron in there, that'll help too." He grimaces. "For obvious reasons, I can't do this myself."

"They're all things to ward off the supernatural." Stiles gives Derek a curious look. "What will they do to you?"

"The silver's a little like an electric shock – not as bad as a taser. The flowers mostly just make us sneeze a lot. Monkshood is the same –"

"'As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite'; got it, I've read Harry Potter."

Derek gives him a look. "Actually, I was going to tell you to wear gloves. It's not poisonous just for werewolves."

"Right." Stiles says, a little blankly. "Um. Thanks. I'll drive over to Greengrove's tomorrow and see if they have any of these. If not I guess I can see what the shipping prices are looking like."

"Let me know if you can't find everything." Derek gets up and moves to the window. "The Hale name still has some weight in the supernatural communities."

"Right," Stiles says again, still more blankly, then adds, "You know, we do have a front door. My dad's not even here, so you can use it freely and without reservation if you want."

Derek states briefly, "Neighbors," and vanishes out the window, which…all right, he might have a point. Seeing a hot guy (Stiles has _eyes_, all right?) in his twenties leaving the Sheriff's house at this hour would definitely set all the tongues going. Especially because retired Mrs. Richardson, the neighbor across the street, probably knows the Sheriff's schedule better than _he_ does, and has absolutely nothing to do besides spy on her neighbors and gossip about them to the entire town. Stiles blows out a breath and goes on a quest for something silver and vaguely vase-shaped to put the flowers in.


End file.
